growing up my dream was to work on similar films with actual hands on creature creations art but now its all computer generated and the artists hand is ofcourse gone and with that, the monster

man himself

its such a sad ending to such a TERRIFIC STYLE AND TECHNIQUE AND ART FORM

nothing could replace this except the original monster creation

I have no idea why someone would basically copy and paste the Wikipedia page for this movie here as their reply, or what the hell that other guy was on about ("I have to cook some dish???"). All I know is this is a great movie.

No. It's just a damn good movie.

That is not a "comment," but rather a "manifesto."
It's just a movie. A very good movie. Enjoy. Whew!

Cult is initiated, with this act the most definitively, after so many years returning back to this, because of subliminal potential it consists, finally got some clues what is this, where it belongs, whom we are following, which pattern does it lead, why it is again resurrected and initiated in recovery make of same title.
It is beginning of prominent era the eighties, too much more than what at first meets the vision, beneath its surface just like this abominable creature is ongoing turmoil, whether to industrialize everything and hold it under control as predicted in book 1984 or to leave it for later unfoldment in cultural renaissance, turned out they leave it to another pathway, instead of aforementioned dystopian future on which rails this train wreck called human civilization is slowly but surely now abruptly in recent years being returned .
Thing is nothing else but human in its mere shape and form, with its advantages and disadvantages, unbeliever and complete faith zealot, political or apolitical, for birth or abortion, for basketball or soccer, for carnivores or vegetarians, either way howsoever you choose result becomes the same, it is ingenious is not it, but somebody have to put it in frame of entertainment and convince us we are what we eat, we are what we drink, we are what we think, we belong to there where we are placed rendered by system of beast that will later on be recognized as the thing we cultivated and made it to be grown ready as this upcoming desolation of suffering.
Where we truly shine is from within and it is main aim for this creature to invade its composure, in hope of changing ours to assimilate us, because after that never and ever will be the same, therefore adversary is in rush to brainwash us until last ones is left


The true Plot and conveyance of meaning of blasphemy


Landscape of mountain in background is what assuming to look like on Antarctica is first and foremost how this movie begins, something what appears as a Norwegian helicopter pursues a sled dog which is running away to an American research station. The Americans witness the passenger while shooting dog aimlessly, pick up the grenade from his ammunition belt and unable to throw it away after removing initial trigger consequentially blow up the helicopter and within its range of explosion himself unfortunately. The pilot fires a rifle and shouts at the Americans, from agony of what desolation this thing has left behind, and also has done to its crew with their station near somewhere almost in neighborhood, but they cannot understand him and deemed him for deranged man that has lost his mind and shooting everything and everybody in his sight, and therefore seems lethal, so he is shot dead in self-defense by station commander Garry as mean of prevention of further accidents. The American helicopter pilot, R.J. Mac Ready, and Dr. Copper leave their place and fresh accident site of proof, to investigate the Norwegian base. And also among the charred ruins and frozen corpses, they find the burnt corpse in suicide attempt of a malformed human, which they will later transfer to the American station. Their biologist, Blair, autopsies the remains and finds a normal set of human organs.

Clark place that thing which is a straight ripoff of Husky dog in every manner possible almost immaculate replica and also succeeded in running away and convincing them in its innocence to introduce it into kennels with their domesticated, trained, equipped Husky sled dogs, and it soon metamorphoses and absorbs several of the station dogs, so that is their cardinal mistake and when horrors begins with station spliced with twists and turns that were following from accident with runaway abomination. Excruciating pain that animals are already undergoing in what is assumed as assimilation, while being still alive, create disturbance, and this disturbance alerts the team, so member of team Childs uses a flamethrower to incinerate the creature, logically thinking that cauterization will cease unnatural mutation, never thinking of that it is maybe intention of higher consciousness being to be done in that order so it would easier escape through crack in floor of wooden planks. Blair autopsies the Dog replica-Thing and surmises it is an organism that can perfectly imitate other life-forms. Data recovered from the Norwegian base leads the Americans to a large excavation site containing a partially buried alien spacecraft, which Norris estimates has been buried for over a hundred thousand years, which is ridiculous If they were able to make it here and then stay hundred thousands of years to be layered with layers of snow, dust and aerosol from atmosphere, or were afraid of desolate surface and could not breathe oxygen find it hazardous and therefore went into cryostasis form of hibernation awaiting undeveloped human researchers to dig them out of snow and ice formed from far melting deposits, in a smaller, human-sized dig site. Blair grows paranoid after running a computer simulation that indicates the creature could assimilate all life on Earth in a matter of years, yet it has not done nothing, according to that item and left earth intact and free, for fearless earthlings to roam around. The station implements controls to reduce the risk of assimilation.

The remains of the malformed human assimilate an isolated Bennings, but Windows interrupts the process and Mac Ready burns the Bennings lookalike replica -Thing. The team also imprisons Blair in a tool shed after he sabotages all the vehicles, kills the remaining sled dogs, and destroys the radio to prevent entirety of team to escape even any of them to be let out on freedom out of the station. Copper suggests testing for infection by comparing the crew's blood against uncontaminated blood held in storage, but after learning the blood stores have been destroyed by thing that truly is dominating over them in numbness situation with terrible plans instinctively, the men lose faith in Garry's leadership, and Mac Ready takes command. He, Windows, and Nauls find Fuchs's burnt corpse and surmise he committed suicide to avoid assimilation. Windows returns to base while Mac Ready and Nauls investigate Mac Ready's shack. During their return, Nauls abandons Mac Ready in a snowstorm, believing he has been assimilated after finding his torn clothes in the shack.

The team debates whether to allow Mac Ready inside, but he breaks in and holds the group at bay with dynamite. During the encounter, Norris appears to suffer a heart attack. As Copper attempts to defibrillate Norris, his chest transforms into a large mouth and bites off Copper's arms, killing him. Mac Ready incinerates the Norris replica -Thing, but its head detaches and attempts to escape before also being burnt. Mac Ready hypothesizes that the Norris replica -Thing demonstrated that every part of the Thing is an individual life-form on its own, with its own survival instinct. He proposes testing blood samples from each survivor with a heated piece of wire and has each man restrained, but is forced to kill Clark after he lunges at Mac Ready with a scalpel. Everyone passes the test except Palmer, whose blood recoils from the heat. Exposed, the Palmer replica -Thing transforms, breaks free of its bonds, and infects Windows, forcing Mac Ready to incinerate them both.

Childs is left on guard while the others go to test Blair, but they find that he has escaped, and has been using vehicle components to assemble a small flying saucer, which is something never ever seen before that it has gained wisdom and knowledge of entire humanity throughout few replications, and omnipotent as it is in comparison to them they still manage to abolish its plans by destroying its recent deed. Upon their return, Childs is missing, and the power generator is destroyed, leaving the men without heat. Mac Ready speculates that, with no escape left, the Thing intends to return to hibernation until a rescue team arrives. Mac Ready, Garry, and Nauls agree that the Thing cannot be allowed to escape and set explosives to destroy the station, but the Blair replica -Thing kills Garry, and Nauls disappears. The Blair replica -Thing transforms into an enormous creature and breaks the detonator, but Mac Ready triggers the explosives with a stick of dynamite, destroying the station.

Childs returns as Mac Ready sits by the burning remnants, saying he got lost in the storm while pursuing Blair. Exhausted and slowly freezing to death, they acknowledge the futility of their distrust and share a bottle of Scotch whisky, so that kind of ambiguous meaning of an end that eventually leads to everlasting no conclusion, neither good wins nor bad loses, and still they could kill themselves and save entire population from assimilation of abominable thing, yet it has been done in act of vague ending, so that intellect, strength and versatility of nemesis stay preserved as they were as in the beginning of its mission on earth and conservation of it in landed, crashed, buried spacecraft, which literally means that it is pointless, at least they should surrender themselves and let invader rule in peace, without interruptions to its ominous hidden agenda, of an assimilation of complete flora and fauna to ensure its survival as long as it could be here possible.
Intention of director seemingly possessed by Prince of Darkness and film that proves his religious commitment since it is nihilism that revolves in his movies, that definitively leaves the mark on his works of fiction, there is none of his movie posters that does not contains all seeing eye as proof of what that The Thing actually is against whom we wholesome as population of earth does not stand a chance to resist to its radical eradication of our existence, or at least enslaving us eternally, now it is possible to see, hear critiques and comprehend what his works are trying to convey.

The most blatant example of it is at the introduction in merely rolling of the cast and story where futility of heroes last ones left Kurt Russell and Keith David is shown through main hero attempt to overcome computer chip in game of chess, but realizing it is all rigged up so in that moment he throws away his drink as liquid which affects negatively into electrical circuitry of personal computer to cause it to burn out due to short circuit and calling him with an insult as a cheater, that alone tells a lot and in whose hands we are pledging our collective destiny on some manipulative, unreliable, insincere hardware and its artificial consciousness programed by also imperfect humans software, we hold praise to it up to the skies with flawed artificial intellect, it is so scary yet our every day reality, he warned us subliminally even in that era, which means he knew something but could not speak about it, out of vow of silence as member of secret society where only majestic are allowed to approach, initiated over their devil worshipping initiations while rest is deemed for their polygon for testing and live stock with exploitative value.
God is set aside and only entertaining follows afterwards until brain mass collapse is allowed, even his last creation The Ward actually encompass us to final destination designed for its worshippers.

Sadness is, that in reality we exist altogether, it actually does not get much more different, than this depicted here in this motion picture, it is something you can curse producer and director of this project or bless him for revelation of your suffering in serenity of severity which represents and behaves similar if not the same.
They all left you behind, abandon you, forsake you, and then when there is no way out it is only you and God almighty that never leaves you and always in any case is with you, but what If you got worldly spirit within yourself then to you approach none other nut eternal adversary of anybody humane enough not to dwell in him and set on his throne, by possessing your soul of an reign of hell.
That actually happened to me I am witness of it and it is scary that process of assimilation when your innocent body and soul get to belong to spirit of blasphemy, abomination, depravity which is intruder virus among healthy dog cells as represented here in this depiction of it literally, it is red and with horns yet successful in deeds of his own act.
When we get separated and divided also distanced by people then we look for consolation in animals so the most rational way would be in dog which is human best friend and then is just about right time when enemy approaches to you through love for dog and empathy for weaklings under allowance from God he is unchained from restrains that held him all your life away from you yo finally tempt you and put your faith even on test of constant reminding how miserable, inappropriate and uncapable you are for shiny world and its wide ways that many are going over them yet rare are those among these who find narrow way of salvation.
In moments of sheer terror and loneliness accompanied with common solitude like in solitary your days and nights are like doing time in prison cell, nobody comes to you, and visits you, not even call you, even though we are now connected much more than ever before, it all remain silent an kind of tranquility like in tomb, with addition of spiders nets, flies and cockroaches you are in some form of purgatory while here in this heavens realm earth or somewhere in between as contrast of opposite places.
Only friend you will find are survivors of same tragedy or something close to your case, and it is here black man guard that oversees situation very complex to be conveyed to anybody and to fully comprehend and white man which represents you caught in backfire and need to return with strike back, because it is only way to survive and attack is sometimes the best defense than doing nothing and being numb and cornered in cold four walls of your empty room full of memories and stuff but hollow because there is nobody to hear you, give help to you and rescue you.
All this years of learning, advancing , socializing for moment of realization it was all the pot of lies, and you only got yourself to count on, it devastates you like tide of enormous destructive power, wipes you as clean slate after washing in cold water of facts.
This inferno of movie and scripture as in package written as novel in Who goes there is something bone marrow chilling, special effects does not do a squat to you when you read it is food industrial production edible materials used for creation of monsters appearances it makes you disgusted in intestines blasted all around in already blood and gore terror but all that syrup, jam and hose for sausages with gelatin and silicone to bind it combined to look gross is infernal apparition, yet what hurts the most is evil depicted precisely and it is real in life we live, human do hut humans and nobody cares , whether there are monsters in them buried under layers of personality or traumas from others dragged on them it is pure terror formatted with nihilism as conclusion, like lines: we should not get out from here alive, we will wait and in time it will be shown, we will not last much longer as this fire that burning wont too.
Already knew that terror of freezing death awaits them.
Now I ask mind and soul of Carpenter John is this right to spend you whole life and career that means opportunities given in important persons period of life given for progress to waste on significant work known all around already damned world to glorify evil and nothingness after all being done for sake of entertaining or maybe condemning viewers that were and are still curious because it seems that well of potential capacity to reveal satisfactory levels of evil to our soul comprehensible is never ever got an point of oversaturation with garbage it represents and effect it has on our poor lives, that are believing in fear much more than in love, and it is how society functions, they would rather believe in something bad that happened than something equivalent of same but good in other hand, because constantly bombarded with bad news and anything good in same news get to pass unnoticed.
I dearly mourn for my soul, youth and great deal of life spent on this fictions, because they were big time titles and shown in appropriate manner of prime time on television, like trying to take away our breath but instead have stolen the serenity of soul and her with it, for true cheap price of doom and gloom depictions.
Seeing this life now such a lot as low life in comparison to former life and experiences from before I wonder still why benevolent force does not intervene already instead of awaiting to last ones left to cease existence or commit suicide, or have natural death or accident in harsh life to tell you meaning of it, and why help does not come when it is needed but awaiting to the very last moment almost to between thin line of life and death to be procured for you, then this things, horrors and blasphemies would not get such a big deal and would not ever and never again occupy people minds and precious souls to act in continuum of our life spending it with dear ones and not on unspeakable, unimaginable , unthinkable horrors that may occur if we firmly believe we are damned, and we are not actually, in this valley of tears we are not deemed to only endure pain, suffering, despair, disappointment, desolation, fear and frailty that accompanies to them until they are present in your life.
Really where is the end to life of sorrows it seems like it never ever ends but disappears in The Fog same theme elaborated by him while days and nights wash over you like waves on shore of existence.
Does anybody, anywhere, anytime feels desert of reality how it crumbles you, crushes you, crumples you, and that only in terror depictions we feel like in familiar place like at home was it that we get used to, enjoying to our harm this evil depictions while feeling safe and sound but since times has changed and truth must come out for continuing this life we all lead it turns out we made a miserable mistake, instead of writing poems, drawing pictures, playing outside on beautiful weather and not in todays climate that is changing from common and unknown reasons of affecting humans on it and weather warfare to lower our number that are still alive.

IN THIS COLD ROOM I SIGN OUT HAVE NO STRENGHT LEFT WITHIN LIMBS HAVE TO LIT FIRE IN STOVE AND COOK SOME DISH, I SEE NOW THAT I COULD NOT ALLOW MYSELF SAME TREATMENT AS DEPICTED IN MOVIE TO WAIT UNTIL TIME UNFOLDS IT, IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY AND NOT NOW AFTER DECADES HAS PASSED, SO LIFE IS THE MOST DEFINITIELY CRUEL AND YOU DOES NOT NEED TO BE ON ANTARCTICA TO FEEL DEPRAVED FROM LIVING LIFE LIKE YOU NEED TO IN ORDER TO SURVIVE AND DOES NOT HAVE OPPORTUNITIES LIKE HERE GIVEN BY FRIENDS IN SOLVING INSURMOUNTABLE OBSTACLES ON YOUR WAY...

just INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

no need for all your extrem wordy detailing, because its a THING

banger

The Thing is a 1982 American science fiction horror film directed by John Carpenter from a screenplay by Bill Lancaster. Based on the 1938 John W. Campbell Jr. novella Who Goes There?, it tells the story of a group of American researchers in Antarctica who encounter the eponymous "Thing", an extraterrestrial life-form that assimilates, then imitates, other organisms. The group is overcome by paranoia and conflict as they learn that they can no longer trust each other and that any of them could be the Thing. The film stars Kurt Russell as the team's helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady, with A. Wilford Brimley, T. K. Carter, David Clennon, Keith David, Richard Dysart, Charles Hallahan, Peter Maloney, Richard Masur, Donald Moffat, Joel Polis, and Thomas G. Waites in supporting roles.

Production began in the mid-1970s as a faithful adaptation of the novella, following 1951's The Thing from Another World. The Thing went through several directors and writers, each with different ideas on how to approach the story. Filming lasted roughly twelve weeks, beginning in August 1981, and took place on refrigerated sets in Los Angeles as well as in Juneau, Alaska, and Stewart, British Columbia. Of the film's $15 million budget, $1.5 million was spent on Rob Bottin's creature effects, a mixture of chemicals, food products, rubber, and mechanical parts turned by his large team into an alien capable of taking on any form.

The Thing was released in 1982 to negative reviews that described it as "instant junk" and "a wretched excess". Critics both praised the special effects achievements and criticized their visual repulsiveness, while others found the characterization poorly realized. The film grossed $19.6 million during its theatrical run. Many reasons have been cited for its failure to impress audiences: competition from films such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which offered an optimistic take on alien visitation; a summer that had been filled with successful science fiction and fantasy films; and an audience living through a recession, diametrically opposed to The Thing's nihilistic and bleak tone.

The film found an audience when released on home video and television. In the subsequent years, it has been reappraised as one of the best science fiction and horror films ever made and has gained a cult following. Filmmakers have noted its influence on their work, and it has been referred to in other media such as television and video games. The Thing has spawned a variety of merchandise – including a 1982 novelization, "haunted house" attractions, board games – and sequels in comic books, a video game of the same title, and a 2011 prequel film of the same title.

Plot

In Antarctica, a Norwegian helicopter pursues a sled dog to an American research station. The Americans witness the passenger accidentally blow up the helicopter and himself. The pilot fires a rifle and shouts at the Americans, but they cannot understand him and he is shot dead in self-defense by station commander, Garry. The American helicopter pilot, R.J. MacReady, and Dr. Copper leave to investigate the Norwegian base. Among the charred ruins and frozen corpses, they find the burnt corpse of a malformed humanoid, which they transfer to the American station. Their biologist, Blair, autopsies the remains and finds a normal set of human organs.

Clark kennels the sled dog, and it soon metamorphoses and absorbs several of the station dogs. This disturbance alerts the team, and Childs uses a flamethrower to incinerate the creature. Blair autopsies the Dog-Thing and surmises it is an organism that can perfectly imitate other life-forms. Data recovered from the Norwegian base leads the Americans to a large excavation site containing a partially buried alien spacecraft, which Norris estimates has been buried for over a hundred thousand years, and a smaller, human-sized dig site. Blair grows paranoid after running a computer simulation that indicates the creature could assimilate all life on Earth in a matter of years. The station implements controls to reduce the risk of assimilation.

The remains of the malformed humanoid assimilate an isolated Bennings, but Windows interrupts the process and MacReady burns the Bennings-Thing. The team also imprisons Blair in a tool shed after he sabotages all the vehicles, kills the remaining sled dogs, and destroys the radio to prevent escape. Copper suggests testing for infection by comparing the crew's blood against uncontaminated blood held in storage, but after learning the blood stores have been destroyed, the men lose faith in Garry's leadership, and MacReady takes command. He, Windows, and Nauls find Fuchs's burnt corpse and surmise he committed suicide to avoid assimilation. Windows returns to base while MacReady and Nauls investigate MacReady's shack. During their return, Nauls abandons MacReady in a snowstorm, believing he has been assimilated after finding his torn clothes in the shack.

The team debates whether to allow MacReady inside, but he breaks in and holds the group at bay with dynamite. During the encounter, Norris appears to suffer a heart attack. As Copper attempts to defibrillate Norris, his chest transforms into a large mouth and bites off Copper's arms, killing him. MacReady incinerates the Norris-Thing, but its head detaches and attempts to escape before also being burnt. MacReady hypothesizes that the Norris-Thing demonstrated that every part of the Thing is an individual life-form with its own survival instinct. He proposes testing blood samples from each survivor with a heated piece of wire and has each man restrained, but is forced to kill Clark after he lunges at MacReady with a scalpel. Everyone passes the test except Palmer, whose blood recoils from the heat. Exposed, the Palmer-Thing transforms, breaks free of its bonds, and infects Windows, forcing MacReady to incinerate them both.

Childs is left on guard while the others go to test Blair, but they find that he has escaped, and has been using vehicle components to assemble a small flying saucer, which they destroy. Upon their return, Childs is missing, and the power generator is destroyed, leaving the men without heat. MacReady speculates that, with no escape left, the Thing intends to return to hibernation until a rescue team arrives. MacReady, Garry, and Nauls agree that the Thing cannot be allowed to escape and set explosives to destroy the station, but the Blair-Thing kills Garry, and Nauls disappears. The Blair-Thing transforms into an enormous creature and breaks the detonator, but MacReady triggers the explosives with a stick of dynamite, destroying the station.

Childs returns as MacReady sits by the burning remnants, saying he got lost in the storm while pursuing Blair. Exhausted and slowly freezing to death, they acknowledge the futility of their distrust and share a bottle of Scotch whisky.

Cast


Kurt Russell (left, pictured in 2016) and Keith David (2015)
Kurt Russell as R.J. MacReady, the helicopter pilot
A. Wilford Brimley as Blair, the senior biologist
T. K. Carter as Nauls, the cook
David Clennon as Palmer, the assistant mechanic
Keith David as Childs, the chief mechanic
Richard Dysart as Dr. Copper, the physician
Charles Hallahan as Norris, the geologist
Peter Maloney as George Bennings, the meteorologist
Richard Masur as Clark, the dog handler
Joel Polis as Fuchs, the assistant biologist
Donald Moffat as Garry, the station commander
Thomas Waites as Windows, the radio operator
The Thing also features Norbert Weisser as one of the Norwegians, and an uncredited dog, Jed, as the Dog-Thing. The only female presence in the film is the voice of MacReady's chess computer, voiced by Carpenter's then-wife, Adrienne Barbeau. Producer David Foster, associate producer Larry Franco, and writer Bill Lancaster, along with other members of the crew, make a cameo appearance in a recovered photograph of the Norwegian team. Camera operator Ray Stella stood in for the shots where needles were used to take blood, telling Carpenter that he could do it all day. Franco also played the Norwegian wielding a rifle and hanging out of the helicopter during the opening sequence. Stunt Coordinator Dick Warlock also made a number of cameos in the film, most notably in an off-screen appearance as the shadow on the wall during the scene where the Dog-Thing enters one of the researcher's living quarters. Clennon was originally intended to be in the scene, but due to his shadow being easily identifiable Carpenter decided to use Warlock instead. Warlock also played Palmer-Thing and stood in for Brimley in a few scenes that involved Blair.

Production
Development

An elderly Caucasian man with a gray mustache and gray receding hair faces the camera with a neutral expression.
Director John Carpenter in 2010
Development of the film began in the mid-1970s when David Foster and fellow producer Lawrence Turman suggested to Universal Pictures an adaptation of the 1938 John W. Campbell novella Who Goes There?. It had been loosely adapted once before in Howard Hawks's and Christian Nyby's 1951 film The Thing from Another World, but Foster and Turman wanted to develop a project that stuck more closely to the source material. Screenwriters Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins held the rights to make an adaptation, but passed on the opportunity to make a new film, so Universal obtained the rights from them. In 1976, Wilbur Stark had purchased the remake rights to 23 RKO Pictures films, including The Thing from Another World, from three Wall Street financiers who did not know what to do with them, in exchange for a return when the films were produced. Universal in turn acquired the rights to remake the film from Stark, resulting in him being given an executive producer credit on all print advertisements, posters, television commercials, and studio press material.

John Carpenter was first approached about the project in 1976 by co-producer and friend Stuart Cohen, but Carpenter was mainly an independent film director, so Universal chose The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) director Tobe Hooper as they already had him under contract. The producers were ultimately unhappy with Hooper and his writing partner Kim Henkel's concept. After several more failed pitches by different writers, and attempts to bring on other directors, such as John Landis, the project was put on hold. Even so, the success of Ridley Scott's 1979 science fiction horror film Alien helped revitalize the project, at which point Carpenter became loosely attached following his success with his influential slasher film Halloween (1978).

Carpenter was reluctant to join the project, for he thought Hawks's adaptation would be difficult to surpass, although he considered the film's monster to be unnotable. Cohen suggested that he read the original novella. Carpenter found the "creepiness" of the imitations conducted by the creature, and the questions it raised, interesting. He drew parallels between the novella and Agatha Christie's mystery novel And Then There Were None (1939), and noted that the story of Who Goes There? was "timely" for him, meaning he could make it "true to [his] day" as Hawks had in his time. Carpenter, a fan of Hawks's adaptation, paid homage to it in Halloween, and he watched The Thing from Another World several times for inspiration before filming began. Carpenter and cinematographer Dean Cundey first worked together on Halloween, and The Thing was their first big-budget project for a major film studio.

After securing the writer and crew, the film was stalled again when Carpenter nearly quit, believing that a passion project of his, El Diablo (1990), was on the verge of being made by EMI Films. The producers discussed various replacements including Walter Hill, Sam Peckinpah and Michael Ritchie, but the development of El Diablo was not as imminent as Carpenter believed, and he remained with The Thing.

Universal initially set a budget of $10 million, with $200,000 for "creature effects", which at the time was more than the studio had ever allocated to a monster film. Filming was scheduled to be completed within 98 days. Universal's production studios estimated that it would require at least $17 million before marketing and other costs, as the plan involved more set construction, including external sets and a large set piece for the original scripted death of Bennings, which was estimated to cost $1.5 million alone. As storyboarding and designs were finalized, the crew estimated they would need at least $750,000 for creature effects, a figure Universal executives agreed to after seeing the number of workers employed under Rob Bottin, the special make-up effects designer. Larry Franco was responsible for making the budget work for the film; he cut the filming schedule by a third, eliminated the exterior sets for on-site shooting, and removed Bennings's more extravagant death scene. Cohen suggested reusing the destroyed American camp as the ruined Norwegian camp, saving a further $250,000. When filming began in August, The Thing had a budget of $11.4 million, and indirect costs brought it to $14 million. The effects budget ran over, eventually totaling $1.5 million, forcing the elimination of some scenes, including Nauls's confrontation of a creature dubbed the "box Thing". By the end of production, Carpenter had to make a personal appeal to executive Ned Tanen for $100,000 to complete a simplified version of the Blair-Thing.The final cost was $12.4 million, and overhead costs brought it to $15 million.

Writing

A black-and-white photo of a young Caucasian man with light-colored hair. He is wearing a cowboy hat and flannel shirt. He looks to the left of the camera, holding his left hand against the wall.
Writer Bill Lancaster in 1967
Several writers developed drafts for The Thing before Carpenter became involved, including Logan's Run (1967) writer William F. Nolan, novelist David Wiltse, and Hooper and Henkel, whose draft was set at least partially underwater, and which Cohen described as a Moby-Dick-like story in which "The Captain" did battle with a large, non-shapeshifting creature. As Carpenter said in a 2014 interview, "they were just trying to make it work". The writers left before Carpenter joined the project. He said the scripts were "awful", as they changed the story into something it was not, and ignored the chameleon-like aspect of the Thing. Carpenter did not want to write the project himself, after recently completing work on Escape from New York (1981), and having struggled to complete a screenplay for The Philadelphia Experiment (1984). He was wary of taking on writing duties, preferring to let someone else do it. Once Carpenter was confirmed as the director, several writers were asked to script The Thing, including Richard Matheson, Nigel Kneale, and Deric Washburn.

Bill Lancaster initially met with Turman, Foster and Cohen in 1977, but he was given the impression that they wanted to closely replicate The Thing from Another World, and he did not want to remake the film. In August 1979, Lancaster was contacted again. By this time he had read the original Who Goes There? novella, and Carpenter had become involved in the project. Lancaster was hired to write the script after describing his vision for the film, and his intention to stick closely to the original story, to Carpenter, who was a fan of Lancaster's work on The Bad News Bears (1976). Lancaster conceived several key scenes in the film, including the Norris-Thing biting Dr. Copper, and the use of blood tests to identify the Thing, which Carpenter cited as the reason he wanted to work on the film. Lancaster said he found some difficulty in translating Who Goes There? to film, as it features very little action. He also made some significant changes to the story, such as reducing the number of characters from 37 to 12. Lancaster said that 37 was excessive and would be difficult for audiences to follow, leaving little screen time for characterization. He also opted to alter the story's structure, choosing to open his in the middle of the action, instead of using a flashback as in the novella. Several characters were modernized for contemporary audiences; MacReady, originally a meteorologist, became a tough loner described in the script as "35. Helicopter pilot. Likes chess. Hates the cold. The pay is good." Lancaster aimed to create an ensemble piece where one person emerged as the hero, instead of having a Doc Savage-type hero from the start.

Lancaster wrote thirty to forty pages but struggled with the film's second act, and it took him several months to complete the script. After it was finished, Lancaster and Carpenter spent a weekend in northern California refining the script, each having different takes on how a character should sound, and comparing their ideas for scenes. Lancaster's script opted to keep the creature largely concealed throughout the film, and it was Bottin who convinced Carpenter to make it more visible to have a greater impact on the audience. Lancaster's original ending had both MacReady and Childs turn into the Thing. In the spring, the characters are rescued by helicopter, greeting their saviors with "Hey, which way to a hot meal?". Carpenter thought this ending was too shallow. In total, Lancaster completed four drafts of the screenplay. The novella concludes with the humans clearly victorious, but concerned that birds they see flying toward the mainland may have been infected by the Thing. Carpenter opted to end the film with the survivors slowly freezing to death to save humanity from infection, believing this to be the ultimate heroic act. Lancaster wrote this ending, which eschews a The Twilight Zone-style twist or the destruction of the monster, as he wanted to instead have an ambiguous moment between the pair, of trust and mistrust, fear and relief.

Casting

An elderly Caucasian male with a long white mustache. He is wearing a cowboy hat and striped waistcoat while holding a microphone. He is standing in front of a screen.
Actor Wilford Brimley in 2012. He was cast for his everyman persona which would allow audiences not to notice his absence from the story until the right time.
Kurt Russell was involved in the production before being cast, helping Carpenter develop his ideas. Russell was the last actor to be cast, in June 1981, by which point second unit filming was starting in Juneau, Alaska. Carpenter had worked with Russell twice before but wanted to keep his options open. Discussions with the studio involved using actors Christopher Walken, Jeff Bridges, or Nick Nolte, who were either unavailable or declined, and Sam Shepard, who showed interest but was never pursued. Tom Atkins and Jack Thompson were strong early and late contenders for the role of MacReady, but the decision was made to go with Russell. In part, Carpenter cited the practicality of choosing someone he had found reliable before, and who would not balk at the difficult filming conditions. It took Russell about a year to grow his hair and beard out for the role. At various points, the producers met with Brian Dennehy, Kris Kristofferson, John Heard, Ed Harris, Tom Berenger, Jack Thompson, Scott Glenn, Fred Ward, Peter Coyote, Tom Atkins, and Tim McIntire. Some passed on the idea of starring in a monster film, while Dennehy became the choice to play Copper. Each actor was to be paid $50,000, but after the more-established Russell was cast, his salary increased to $400,000.

Geoffrey Holder, Carl Weathers, and Bernie Casey were considered for the role of Childs, and Carpenter also looked at Isaac Hayes, having worked with him on Escape from New York. Ernie Hudson was the front-runner and was almost cast until they met with Keith David. The Thing was David's first significant film role, and coming from a theater background, he had to learn on set how to hold himself back and not show every emotion his character was feeling, with guidance from Richard Masur and Donald Moffat in particular. Masur and David discussed their characters in rehearsals and decided that they would not like each other. For Blair, the team chose the then-unknown Wilford Brimley, as they wanted an everyman whose absence would not be questioned by the audience until the appropriate time. The intent with the character was to have him become infected early in the film but offscreen, so that his status would be unknown to the audience, concealing his intentions. Carpenter wanted to cast Donald Pleasence, but it was decided that he was too recognizable to accommodate the role. T. K. Carter was cast as Nauls, but comedian Franklyn Ajaye also came in to read for the role. Instead, he delivered a lengthy speech about the character being a stereotype, after which the meeting ended.

Bottin lobbied hard to play Palmer, but it was deemed impossible for him to do so alongside his existing duties. As the character has some comedic moments, Universal brought in comedians Jay Leno, Garry Shandling, and Charles Fleischer, among others, but opted to go with actor David Clennon, who was better suited to play the dramatic elements. Clennon had read for the Bennings character, but he preferred the option of playing Palmer's "blue-collar stoner" to a "white collar science man". Powers Boothe, Lee Van Cleef, Jerry Orbach, and Kevin Conway were considered for the role of Garry, and Richard Mulligan was also considered when the production experimented with the idea of making the character closer to MacReady in age. Masur also read for Garry, but he asked to play Clark instead, as he liked the character's dialogue and was also a fan of dogs. Masur worked daily with the wolfdog Jed and his handler, Clint Rowe, during rehearsals, as Rowe was familiarizing Jed with the sounds and smells of people. This helped Masur's and Jed's performance onscreen, as the dog would stand next to him without looking for his handler. Masur described his character as one uninterested in people, but who loves working with dogs. He went to a survivalist store and bought a flip knife for his character, and used it in a confrontation with David's character. Masur turned down a role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to play Clark. William Daniels and Dennehy were both interested in playing Dr. Copper, and it was a last-second decision by Carpenter to go with Richard Dysart.

In early drafts, Windows was called Sanchez, and later Sanders. The name Windows came when the actor for the role, Thomas Waites, was in a costume fitting and tried on a large pair of dark glasses, which the character wears in the film. Russell described the all-male story as interesting since the men had no one to posture for without women. Anita Dann served as casting director.

Filming

The Thing was storyboarded extensively by Mike Ploog and Mentor Huebner before filming began. Their work was so detailed that many of the film's shots replicate the image layout completely. Cundey pushed for the use of anamorphic format aspect ratio, believing that it allowed for placing several actors in an environment, and making use of the scenic vistas available, while still creating a sense of confinement within the image. It also enabled the use of negative space around the actors to imply something may be lurking just offscreen.

A distance shot near Juneau, Alaska. The area is covered in untouched white snow with mountain peaks in the distance. To the right of the image, nearer the photographer, is an uncovered outcrop of rocks.
Principal photography began in August 1981 in Juneau, Alaska.
Principal photography began on August 24, 1981, in Juneau, Alaska. Filming lasted about twelve weeks. Carpenter insisted on two weeks of rehearsals before filming as he wanted to see how scenes would play out. This was unusual at the time because of the expense involved. Filming then moved to the Universal lot, where the outside heat was over 100 °F (38 °C). The internal sets were climate-controlled to 28 °F (−2 °C) to facilitate their work. The team considered building the sets inside an existing refrigerated structure but were unable to find one large enough. Instead, they collected as many portable air conditioners as they could, closed off the stage, and used humidifiers and misters to add moisture to the air. After watching a roughly assembled cut of filming to date, Carpenter was unhappy that the film seemed to feature too many scenes of men standing around talking. He rewrote some already completed scenes to take place outdoors to be shot on location when principal photography moved to Stewart, British Columbia.

Carpenter was determined to use authentic locations instead of studio sets, and his successes on Halloween and The Fog (1980) gave him the credibility to take on the much bigger-budget production of The Thing. A film scout located an area just outside Stewart, along the Canadian coast, which offered the project both ease of access and scenic value during the day. On December 2, 1981, roughly 100 American and Canadian crew members moved to the area to begin filming. During the journey there, the crew bus slid in the snow toward the unprotected edge of the road, nearly sending it down a 500-foot (150 m) embankment. Some of the crew stayed in the small mining town during filming, while others lived on residential barges on the Portland Canal. They would make the 27-mile (43 km) drive up a small, winding road to the filming location in Alaska where the exterior outpost sets were built.

The sets had been built in Alaska during the summer, atop a rocky area overlooking a glacier, in preparation for snow to fall and cover them. They were used for both interior and exterior filming, meaning they could not be heated above freezing inside to ensure there was always snow on the roof. Outside, the temperature was so low that the camera lenses would freeze and break. The crew had to leave the cameras in the freezing temperatures, as keeping them inside in the warmth resulted in foggy lenses that took hours to clear. Filming, greatly dependent on the weather, took three weeks to complete, with heavy snow making it impossible to film on some days. Rigging the explosives necessary to destroy the set in the film's finale required 8 hours.

Keith David broke his hand in a car accident the day before he was to begin shooting. David attended filming the next day, but when Carpenter and Franco saw his swollen hand, they sent him to the hospital where it was punctured with two pins. He returned wearing a surgical glove beneath a black glove that was painted to resemble his complexion. His left hand is not seen for the first half of the film. Carpenter filmed the Norwegian camp scenes after the end scenes, using the damaged American base as a stand-in for the charred Norwegian camp. The explosive destruction of the base required the camera assistants to stand inside the set with the explosives, which were activated remotely. The assistants then had to run to a safe distance while seven cameras captured the base's destruction. Filmed when the heavy use of special effects was rare, the actors had to adapt to having Carpenter describe to them what their characters were looking at, as the effects would not be added until post-production. There were some puppets used to create the impression of what was happening in the scene, but in other cases, the cast would be looking at a wall or an object marked with an X.

Art director John J. Lloyd oversaw the design and construction of all the sets, as there were no existing locations used in the film. Cundey suggested that the sets should have ceilings and pipes seen on camera to make the spaces seem more claustrophobic.

Post-production

Several scenes in the script were omitted from the film, sometimes because there was too much dialogue that slowed the pace and undermined the suspense. Carpenter blamed some of the issues on his directorial method, noting that several scenes appeared to be repeating events or information. Another scene featuring a snowmobile chase pursuing dogs was removed from the shooting script as it would have been too expensive to film. One scene present in the film, but not the script, features a monologue by MacReady. Carpenter added this partly to establish what was happening in the story and because he wanted to highlight Russell's heroic character after taking over the camp. Carpenter said that Lancaster's experience writing ensemble pieces did not emphasize single characters. Since Halloween, several horror films had replicated many of the scare elements of that film, something Carpenter wanted to move away from for The Thing. He removed scenes from Lancaster's script that had been filmed, such as a body suddenly falling into view at the Norwegian camp, which he felt were too clichéd. Approximately three minutes of scenes were filmed from Lancaster's script that elaborated on the characters' backgrounds.

A scene with MacReady absentmindedly inflating a blow-up doll while watching the Norwegian tapes was filmed but was not used in the finished film. The doll would later appear as a jump scare with Nauls. Other scenes featured expanded or alternate deaths for various characters. In the finished film, Fuchs's charred bones are discovered, revealing he has died offscreen, but an alternate take sees his corpse impaled on a wall with a shovel. Nauls was scripted to appear in the finale as a partly assimilated mass of tentacles, but in the film, he simply disappears. Carpenter struggled with a method of conveying to the audience what assimilation by the creature actually meant. Lancaster's original set piece of Bennings's death had him pulled beneath a sheet of ice by the Thing, before resurfacing in different areas in various stages of assimilation. The scene called for a set to be built on one of Universal's largest stages, with sophisticated hydraulics, dogs, and flamethrowers, but it was deemed too costly to produce. A scene was filmed with Bennings being murdered by an unknown assailant, but it was felt that assimilation, leading to his death, was not explained enough. Short on time, and with no interior sets remaining, a small set was built, Maloney was covered with K-Y Jelly, orange dye, and rubber tentacles. Monster gloves for a different creature were repurposed to demonstrate partial assimilation.

Carpenter filmed multiple endings for The Thing, including a "happier" ending because editor Todd Ramsay thought that the bleak, nihilistic conclusion would not test well with audiences. In the alternate take, MacReady is rescued and given a blood test that proves he is not infected. Carpenter said that stylistically this ending would have been "cheesy". Editor Verna Fields was tasked with reworking the ending to add clarity and resolution. It was finally decided to create an entirely new scene, which omitted the suspicion of Childs being infected by removing him completely, leaving MacReady alone. This new ending tested only slightly better with audiences than the original, and the production team agreed to the studio's request to use it. It was set to go to print for theaters when the producers, Carpenter, and executive Helena Hacker decided that the film was better left with ambiguity instead of nothing at all. Carpenter gave his approval to restore the ambiguous ending, but a scream was inserted over the outpost explosion to posit the monster's death. Universal executive Sidney Sheinberg disliked the ending's nihilism and, according to Carpenter, said, "Think about how the audience will react if we see the [Thing] die with a giant orchestra playing". Carpenter later noted that both the original ending and the ending without Childs tested poorly with audiences, which he interpreted as the film simply not being heroic enough.

Music

Main theme from The Thing
0:31
Ennio Morricone created a sound that replicated John Carpenter's own style of synthesized music. The piece is used throughout The Thing.
Problems playing this file? See media help.
Ennio Morricone composed the film's score, as Carpenter wanted The Thing to have a European musical approach.[58][59] Carpenter flew to Rome to speak with Morricone to convince him to take the job. By the time Morricone flew to Los Angeles to record the score, he had already developed a tape filled with an array of synthesizer music because he was unsure what type of score Carpenter wanted. Morricone wrote complete separate orchestral and synthesizer scores and a combined score, which he knew was Carpenter's preference. Carpenter picked a piece, closely resembling his own scores, that became the main theme used throughout the film. He also played the score from Escape from New York for Morricone as an example. Morricone made several more attempts, bringing the score closer to Carpenter's own style of music. In total, Morricone produced a score of approximately one hour that remained largely unused but was later released as part of the film's soundtrack. Carpenter and his longtime collaborator Alan Howarth separately developed some synth-styled pieces used in the film. In 2012, Morricone recalled:

I've asked [Carpenter], as he was preparing some electronic music with an assistant to edit on the film, "Why did you call me, if you want to do it on your own?" He surprised me, he said – "I got married to your music. This is why I've called you." ... Then when he showed me the film, later when I wrote the music, we didn't exchange ideas. He ran away, nearly ashamed of showing it to me. I wrote the music on my own without his advice. Naturally, as I had become quite clever since 1982, I've written several scores relating to my life. And I had written one, which was electronic music. And [Carpenter] took the electronic score.

Carpenter said:

[Morricone] did all the orchestrations and recorded for me 20 minutes of music I could use wherever I wished but without seeing any footage. I cut his music into the film and realized that there were places, mostly scenes of tension, in which his music would not work ... I secretly ran off and recorded in a couple of days a few pieces to use. My pieces were very simple electronic pieces – it was almost tones. It was not really music at all but just background sounds, something today you might even consider as sound effects.

Design
Creature effects

The Thing's special effects were largely designed by Bottin, who had previously worked with Carpenter on The Fog (1980). When Bottin joined the project in mid-1981, pre-production was in progress, but no design had been settled on for the alien. Artist Dale Kuipers had created some preliminary paintings of the creature's look, but he left the project after being hospitalized following a traffic accident before he could develop them further with Bottin. Carpenter conceived the Thing as a single creature, but Bottin suggested that it should be constantly changing and able to look like anything. Carpenter initially considered Bottin's description of his ideas as "too weird", and had him work with Ploog to sketch them instead. As part of the Thing's design, it was agreed anyone assimilated by it would be a perfect imitation and would not know they were the Thing. The actors spent hours during rehearsals discussing whether they would know they were the Thing when taken over. Clennon said that it did not matter, because everyone acted, looked and smelled exactly the same before (or after) being taken over. At its peak, Bottin had a 35-person crew of artists and technicians, and he found it difficult to work with so many people. To help manage the team, he hired Erik Jensen, a special effects line producer who he had worked with on The Howling (1981), to be in charge of the special make-up effects unit. Bottin's crew also included mechanical aspect supervisor Dave Kelsey, make-up aspect coordinator Ken Diaz, moldmaker Gunnar Ferdinansen, and Bottin's longtime friend Margaret Beserra, who managed painting and hair work.

A creature bearing the face of a dog lies on the floor. Various unnatural formations such as legs and tentacles are present on its body.
The Thing assimilating dogs. Stan Winston was brought in to help complete the effect. It was operated on a raised set with puppeteers working below.
In designing the Thing's different forms, Bottin explained that the creature had been all over the galaxy. This allowed it to call on different attributes as necessary, such as stomachs that transform into giant mouths and spider legs sprouting from heads. Bottin said the pressure he experienced caused him to dream about working on designs, some of which he would take note of after waking. One abandoned idea included a series of dead baby monsters, which was deemed "too gross". Bottin admitted he had no idea how his designs would be implemented practically, but Carpenter did not reject them. Carpenter said, "What I didn't want to end up with in this movie was a guy in a suit ... I grew up as a kid watching science-fiction monster movies, and it was always a guy in a suit." According to Cundey, Bottin was very sensitive about his designs, and worried about the film showing too many of them. At one point, as a preemptive move against any censorship, Bottin suggested making the creature's violent transformations and the appearance of the internal organs more fantastical using colors. The decision was made to tone down the color of the blood and viscera, although much of the filming had been completed by that point. The creature effects used a variety of materials including mayonnaise, creamed corn, microwaved bubble gum, and K-Y Jelly.

During filming, then-21-year-old Bottin was hospitalized for exhaustion, double pneumonia, and a bleeding ulcer, caused by his extensive workload. Bottin himself explained he would "hoard the work", opting to be directly involved in many of the complicated tasks. His dedication to the project saw him spend over a year living on the Universal lot. Bottin said he did not take a day off during that time and slept on the sets or in locker rooms. To take some pressure off his crew, Bottin enlisted the aid of special effects creator Stan Winston to complete some of the designs, primarily the Dog-Thing. With insufficient time to create a sophisticated mechanical creature, Winston opted to create a hand puppet. A cast was made of makeup artist Lance Anderson's arm and head, around which the Dog-Thing was sculpted in oil-based clay. The final foam-latex puppet, worn by Anderson, featured radio-controlled eyes and cable-controlled legs, and was operated from below a raised set on which the kennel was built. Slime from the puppet would leak onto Anderson during the two days it took to film the scene, and he had to wear a helmet to protect himself from the explosive squibs simulating gunfire. Anderson pulled the tentacles into the Dog-Thing and reverse motion was used to create the effect of them slithering from its body. Winston refused to be credited for his work, insisting that Bottin deserved sole credit; Winston was given a "thank you" in the credits instead.

A Caucasian male lies on a table seemingly unconscious. His torso is opened from chest to stomach in the formation of a mouth with sharp teeth along the edges. A doctor attempting to revive him has both his hands inside the exposed, empty cavity.
The Norris-Thing. False arms were attached to a double amputee, allowing them to be "bitten off" by the chest mouth.
In the "chest chomp" scene, Dr. Copper attempts to revive Norris with a defibrillator. Revealing himself as the Thing, Norris-Thing's chest transforms into a large mouth that severs Copper's arms. Bottin accomplished this scene by recruiting a double amputee and fitting him with prosthetic arms filled with wax bones, rubber veins and Jell-O. The arms were then placed into the practical "stomach mouth" where the mechanical jaws clamped down on them, at which point the actor pulled away, severing the false arms. The effect of the Norris-Thing's head detaching from the body to save itself took many months of testing before Bottin was satisfied enough to film it. The scene involved a fire effect, but the crew were unaware that fumes from the rubber foam chemicals inside the puppet were flammable. The fire ignited the fumes, creating a large fireball that engulfed the puppet. It suffered only minimal damage after the fire had been put out, and the crew successfully filmed the scene. Stop-motion expert Randall William Cook developed a sequence for the end of the film where MacReady is confronted by the gigantic Blair-Thing. Cook created a miniature model of the set and filmed wide-angle shots of the monster in stop motion, but Carpenter was not convinced by the effect and used only a few seconds of it. It took fifty people to operate the actual Blair-Thing puppet.

The production intended to use a camera centrifuge – a rotating drum with a fixed camera platform – for the Palmer-Thing scene, allowing him to seem to run straight up the wall and across the ceiling. Again, the cost was too high and the idea abandoned for a stuntman falling into frame onto a floor made to look like the outpost's ceiling.[69] Stuntman Anthony Cecere stood in for the Palmer-Thing after MacReady sets it on fire and it crashes through the outpost wall.

Visuals and lighting
Cundey worked with Bottin to determine the appropriate lighting for each creature. He wanted to show off Bottin's work because of its details, but he was conscious that showing too much would reveal its artificial nature, breaking the illusion. Each encounter with the creature was planned for areas where they could justify using a series of small lights to highlight the particular creature-model's surface and textures. Cundey would illuminate the area behind the creature to detail its overall shape. He worked with Panavision and a few other companies to develop a camera capable of automatically adjusting light exposure at different film speeds. He wanted to try filming the creature at fast and slow speeds thinking this would create a more interesting visual effect, but they were unable to accomplish this at the time. For the rest of the set, Cundey created a contrast by lighting the interiors with warmer lights hung overhead in conical shades so that they could still control the lighting and have darkened areas on set. The outside was constantly bathed in a cold, blue light that Cundey had discovered being used on airport runways. The reflective surface of the snow and the blue light helped create the impression of coldness. The team also made use of the flamethrowers and magenta-hued flares used by the actors to create dynamic lighting.

The team originally wanted to shoot the film in black-and-white, but Universal was reluctant as it could affect their ability to sell the television rights for the film. Instead, Cundey suggested muting the colors as much as possible. The inside of the sets were painted in neutral colors such as gray, and many of the props were also painted gray, while the costumes were a mix of somber browns, blues, and grays. They relied on the lighting to add color. Albert Whitlock provided matte-painted backdrops, including the scene in which the Americans discover the giant alien spaceship buried in the ice. A scene where MacReady walks up to a hole in the ice where the alien had been buried was filmed at Universal, while the surrounding area, including the alien spaceship, helicopter, and snow, were all painted.

Carpenter's friend John Wash, who developed the opening computer simulation for Escape from New York, designed the computer program showing how the Thing assimilates other organisms. Model maker Susan Turner built the alien ship approaching Earth in the pre-credits sequence, which featured 144 strobing lights. Drew Struzan designed the film's poster. He completed it in 24 hours, based only on a briefing, knowing little about the film.

Release
See also: 1982 in film
A street view of a wide, white building. In the center is a large vertical sign that says "Pacific".
A special opening premiere of The Thing was held at the Hollywood Pacific Theatre, hosted by Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.
The lack of information about the film's special effects drew the attention of film exhibitors in early 1982. They wanted reassurance that The Thing was a first-rate production capable of attracting audiences. Cohen and Foster, with a specially employed editor and Universal's archive of music, put together a 20-minute showreel emphasizing action and suspense. They used available footage, including alternate and extended scenes not in the finished film, but avoided revealing the special effects as much as possible. The reaction from the exclusively male exhibitors was generally positive, and Universal executive Robert Rehme told Cohen that the studio was counting on The Thing's success, as they expected E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to appeal only to children. While finalizing the film, Universal sent Carpenter a demographic study showing that the audience appeal of horror films had declined by seventy percent over the previous six months. Carpenter considered this a suggestion that he lower his expectations of the film's performance. After one market research screening, Carpenter queried the audience on their thoughts, and one audience member asked, "Well what happened in the very end? Which one was the Thing ...?" When Carpenter responded that it was up to their imagination, the audience member responded, "Oh, God. I hate that."

After returning from a screening of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the audience's silence at a The Thing trailer caused Foster to remark, "We're dead". The response to public pre-screenings of The Thing resulted in the studio changing the somber, black-and-white advertising approved by the producers to a color image of a person with a glowing face. The tagline was also changed from "Man is the warmest place to hide" – written by Stephen Frankfort, who wrote the Alien tagline, "In space, no one can hear you scream" – to "The ultimate in alien terror", trying to capitalize on Alien's audience. Carpenter attempted to make a last-minute change of the film's title to Who Goes There?, to no avail. The week before its release, Carpenter promoted the film with clips on Late Night with David Letterman. In 1981, horror magazine Fangoria held a contest encouraging readers to submit drawings of what the Thing would look like. Winners were rewarded with a trip to Universal Studios. On its opening day, a special screening was held at the Hollywood Pacific Theatre, presided over by Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, with free admission for those in costume as monsters.

Box office

The Thing was released in the United States on June 25, 1982. During its opening weekend, the film earned $3.1 million from 840 theaters – an average of $3,699 per theater – finishing as the number eight film of the weekend behind supernatural horror Poltergeist ($4.1 million), which was in its fourth weekend of release, and ahead of action film Megaforce ($2.3 million). It dropped out of the top 10 grossing films after three weeks, and ended its run earning a total of $19.6 million against its $15 million budget, making it only the 42nd highest-grossing film of 1982. It was not a box office failure, nor was it a hit.

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My favorite movie of all time, the mood, characters, writing and heaps of practical effect makes this movie stand out from the rest.

Not a second job, a job. Which I think is a bit bigger of a step to take, things considered.

I was looking for original The Thing, and couldn't find a decent, ahem, low cost alternative for a bum like myself, and then once again the Internet Archive came to the rescue.

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I just might have to shave and get a suit, because these guys are too important to fail.

<4 <4 <4 <4

Other than the antiquated technology they use, this still stands the test of time.

The characters aren't super fleshed out, but that works with the film (they don't know who to trust, and in the same way we don't either since we barely know them).

The creature designs are also super creative and incredibly alien.

Definitely a must-watch for horror fans, or people who've heard about this before and never been able/gotten around to watching it.